Frowning, he sat. The sheets were all out of sequence, and without numbers on the pages it took him a while to get them in order. There was something with the IDF logo on top, a copy of an e-mail from the Israeli Embassy in the US, a printout of a newspaper article about a girl getting arrested at an anti-globalization rally in Houston (wasn’t that where Barren’s headquarters were?). Quite a collection of stuff. Zisky had clearly been working hard. Which made him feel even worse about the way he’d just spoken to him. He got the pages sorted, tapped them into a neat pile, sat back and started reading through from the beginning. Slowly at first. Then, suddenly, more urgently as the pieces started to fall into place and the overall picture revealed itself. By the time he reached the end his face was ashen and a rash of sweat had pricked up across his forehead.
‘Oh my God,’ he whispered. And then, out loud: ‘Khalifa!’
L
UXOR
EgyptAir had no available economy seats that night. No business class, either. Which left Khalifa no choice but to empty out the family’s meagre bank account buying a first-class ticket. In any other circumstances he would have been crushed with guilt. Tonight he didn’t give it a second thought. His murdered son – that’s all he cared about.
He confirmed the flights – 7.05 p.m. up to Cairo, with an 8.20 connection on to Alexandria, arriving at 8.50. As instructed, he texted the details to the Nemesis people. The response came back immediately:
Call when you’re on the ground & we’ll tell you what to do.
Again the warning light blipped somewhere deep inside his head. Again, he didn’t pay it any attention. He phoned home and fobbed Zenab off with another story about having to work late. Then, still with a bit of time to kill before he was due at the airport, he looked up a map of the delta and spent fifteen minutes acquainting himself with the lie of the land he was about to venture into.
Rosetta, or Rashid as it was more commonly known, sat near the mouth of the westernmost of the two arms into which the Nile branched as it approached the coast. There was the town itself, clustered along the river’s western shore, and a few kilometres downriver the medieval fort of Qaitbay, where in 1799 Napoleon’s invading forces had discovered the famous Rosetta Stone. None of that concerned Khalifa. His interest was in the bare, sandy promontory just north of Qaitbay, where the Nile finally ended its 6,700-kilometre journey and issued into the Mediterranean. The area was marked as both a nature reserve and a militarized zone, which meant only those with authorization could enter. That’s where the Zoser dock would be – well away from prying eyes. And there was only one approach road. Either they were going to have to go in on foot, or he’d have to blag it with his police badge. The final decision could wait till they were on the ground. For the moment he just needed to know what they were up against.
Four times while he was studying the map he got calls from Ben-Roi. Each time he let the calls go to voicemail and then wiped the message without listening to it. The Israeli was clearly working to an ulterior agenda and he wasn’t interested in hearing more of his lies and excuses. He’d had his chance. What he’d started and bottled out of, he, Khalifa, was going to finish. With the help of the Nemesis Agenda. Ben-Roi could go screw himself. Scheming Jew coward.
He gave the map a final once-over and, just before 6 p.m., headed downstairs, taking Samuel Pinsker’s notebook with him. Halfway down he heard Chief Hassani’s voice in the foyer below, berating someone about the arrangements for the Valley of the Kings opening the following night. Not wanting a rerun of their earlier encounter, he was forced to hover for five minutes on the first-floor landing until eventually the voice faded as the chief left the building. He gave it another thirty seconds just to be sure. Then, by now behind time for his flight, he hurried outside. He was just turning left on to Medina al-Minawra, ready to flag down a taxi to take him out to the airport, when he heard a voice calling his name. A familiar voice.
Zenab.
She was standing on the opposite side of the street, beside the expanse of scrub-covered waste ground that fronted the police station. He glanced at his watch – 6.10, well behind time – and jogged over to her.
‘What are you doing here?’
Her
hijab
had dropped back over her hair; there was sweat on her forehead. Like she’d been running.
‘Zenab?’
‘You said you were working late.’
‘I am. I’m . . . just popping out to get something.’
Twenty years they’d been married and he’d never once lied to her. These last thirty-six hours he seemed to have done little else. She reached out a hand and touched his arm, her gaze rolling up to meet his. There was no need for her to say anything. It was all in her eyes. She knew he wasn’t telling the truth. A couple of seconds passed. Then, withdrawing her hand, she stepped back and dropped her eyes to the ground.
‘Is she beautiful?’
It took Khalifa a moment to get what she meant.
‘Oh, Zenab!’ His voice was caught between horror and black amusement. ‘Zenab!’
He came up to her, took her arm, guided her a few metres out on to the waste ground, away from the scatter of people lined along the side of the street.
‘How could you think such a thing?’
‘I know I haven’t been a good wife, Yusuf. These last nine months. Since . . .’ She blinked away tears. ‘I don’t blame you. Really I don’t.’
‘Stop this, Zenab. Stop it now.’
He slid the notebook into the inner pocket of his jacket and took her hands in his. Her beautiful, long-fingered hands. Hands that as long as he lived he would never tire of holding.
‘You are the love of my life. In all the years we have been together I have never once looked at another woman. Why would I when the most beautiful woman in the world is right here at my side?’
‘Then why, Yusuf? Why are you lying to me like this? I hear it in your voice, I see it on your face. I know you too well.’
Now it was Khalifa’s eyes that dropped.
‘Where were you last night?’ she pressed. ‘You don’t call. When you come home your clothes are filthy, you haven’t slept, there is blood on your arm, you look like a ghost.’ Her hands were trembling. ‘What is happening, Yusuf? Tell me.’
‘Just . . . station stuff,’ he mumbled, shuffling his feet, twisting his wrist fractionally to shoot a glance at his watch. ‘The Valley of the Kings thing, Chief Hassani . . .’
She snatched her hands away, brought them up to his face.
‘Please, Yusuf! Enough lies. I know how much I have leant on you since we lost Ali, how much you have had to bear on top of your own grief, how much of a burden—’
‘Don’t say that, Zenab! You’ve never been a burden! Never! You are my wife—’
‘Then tell your wife what is happening! Please, I beg you! I beg you!’ Tears were gathering on her eyelashes, dropping on to her cheeks. ‘These last few days, for the first time I have felt . . . thought maybe there is some light at the end of the tunnel. But I cannot do it without you, Yusuf. There is something wrong, I feel it. I need to know. Because to lose a husband on top of . . . on top of . . .’
She couldn’t finish the sentence. Khalifa grasped her shoulders, sneaking another glance at his watch as he did so, hating himself for it, but there was so little time, so much riding on him making the flight . . .
‘You’re not going to lose a husband, Zenab. I love you, I’m here for you. Always. Always. It’s just that tonight . . . tonight I have to go to Alexandria.’
‘Alexandria!’
‘It’s nothing to worry—’
She whipped her hands from his face, stepped away from him again. ‘What are you not telling me, Yusuf?’
‘Nothing . . .’
‘What are you not telling me!’
‘It’s complicated.’
‘So explain it!’
‘There’s something I have to . . . some people . . . it’s a case Ben-Roi . . .’
‘Tell me!’
‘Ali! It’s about Ali!’
It came out louder than he intended, just short of a shout. On the street behind them people turned to see what the commotion was about. Khalifa ignored them.
‘It’s about our son,’ he repeated, struggling to keep his voice level. ‘Our boy. I haven’t got time to go into details, the details don’t matter. All you need to know is that I am going to get justice for Ali.’
She didn’t say anything, just stared at him, her hand at her throat, her brown eyes watery with fear.
‘They killed him, Zenab. Zoser. And another company like them. They murdered Ali. And I’m going to get them. Punish them. There are people who are going to help me. Good people. There’s nothing for you to be afraid of. It’s all going to be OK. We’re going to have justice for our boy. We’re going to get the bastards!’
She was shaking her head. ‘I don’t recognize you,’ she whispered. ‘Twenty years and suddenly I no longer recognize my husband.’
‘What don’t you recognize?’ His voice shot up again, something flaring inside him. ‘They killed our son and I want justice! What don’t you recognize about that?’
‘This anger. This . . . this . . . madness.’
‘It’s madness to want justice?’
‘To leave your wife, your family, while you go off on some fool’s mission—’
‘It’s not a fool’s mission! Don’t say that! The law won’t touch them so I have to do it myself! You should be thanking me! You hear? Thanking me, you ungrateful—’
He broke off, abruptly, gazing in horror at the fist he’d raised into his wife’s face, the first time in all their years together he’d ever done such a thing. A couple of seconds passed, Khalifa contemplating the fist as if it had somehow materialized out of thin air. Then his hand dropped like a stone.
‘Oh God, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Please, I didn’t mean . . . I’m so sorry.’
Zenab stared at him, shell-shocked, the amplified call to evening prayer echoing from the minaret of the Elnas Mosque further down the street. Then she did something
she
had never done in all their years together. Coming forward she dropped to her knees in front of Khalifa and clasped her hands in a gesture of supplication.
‘My husband,’ she whispered, ‘my love, my light, my life. Never, ever have I stood in your way. Never have I made demands of you. But tonight I am pleading, pleading: whatever it is you are thinking of doing, let it go. I beg you, let it go.’
He stooped, tried to lift her, aware that people were looking, pointing. She shrugged his hand away, shuffled even closer, right up against him, tears spilling across her cheeks.
‘If you could somehow bring our boy back then you would go with every blessing I could give,’ she choked. ‘I would go with you. To the end of the earth and beyond. But this is not to bring Ali back. This is to seek vengeance for something that was a terrible accident—’
‘It wasn’t an accident, Zenab! They murdered him, you don’t know the story.’
‘I know that my son is dead! And if he leaves here tonight, my husband will be too! Is there not enough pain in this family? If not for me, for your children – for Yusuf and Batah. Already they have lost a brother. Please, please, do not add a father to the list!’
‘They’re not going to lose—’
‘They are, Yusuf! I know it, I feel it! All the crazy, dangerous things you have done in our years together – always I have stood by you because you are the finest man in the world and I have known that what you do comes from the goodness in your heart –’ she slammed a hand against her chest. ‘But this, Yusuf, this . . . whatever it is you are planning, it does not come from goodness. I see it in your eyes. It comes from anger, and hatred, and pain, and nothing can come of that but more pain. If what you say is true, Allah will be these people’s judge. It is with Him that their punishment lies, not you. It will end in tragedy, Yusuf, I know it, I know it! And I cannot take more tragedy in my life. None of us can.’ She was sobbing now, clinging to his legs. ‘I beg you, Yusuf – wife to husband, mother to father, friend to friend: do not go tonight. I beg you. Do not go. Do not leave me. Stay! Stay!’
Ten metres away a small crowd had gathered at the side of the street, watching the unfolding drama. Someone was even holding up a mobile phone, filming the scene. Khalifa paid them no mind. Easing Zenab’s arms away, he dropped to his knees and held her.
‘It’s OK,’ he whispered, ‘it’s OK, my darling. Everything’s going to be OK.’
Slowly she calmed. He pulled back, tilted her face up, took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the tears from her cheeks. Another few moments passed, the two of them just kneeling there, holding each other, everything beyond their immediate world seeming to fade and disappear so that it was just the pair of them alone in their own private bubble. Then, gently, he helped her to her feet. She started to smile, assuming he had relented. Then she saw him look at his watch.
‘Oh God, Yusuf, I thought—’
He lifted a finger and touched it to her lips, silencing her. At any other time these last twenty years, if she’d implored him like that he would have backed down without question. Done whatever she wanted. Jumped off a cliff, if that’s what she asked. Something had happened to him in the mine. Something had changed inside. Shifted. Hardened. He was not the person he used to be.
‘I love you, Zenab,’ he said, his voice suddenly dull and emotionless. ‘More than anything in the world. And the kids. You are everything to me. But I have to do this. For Ali. And nothing you or anyone else says is going to stop me. I’ll be back tomorrow morning. That’s a promise.’
He leant forward and kissed her forehead. Then, with another look at his watch – 6.28; he was cutting this very fine – he pulled Pinsker’s notebook from his shirt and set off at a jog. Behind him the man with the mobile phone stretched out his arm and zoomed in, filming as Zenab dropped back to her knees and buried her face in her hands.
B
EN
-G
URION
I
NTERNATIONAL
A
IRPORT
, J
ERUSALEM
‘Hi, Arieh. Got your message. I’m promised for dinner at Rinat’s but you can come round later if you want to talk. Or else we could do breakfast. If you’re serious about this new job, moving up to Haifa . . . well, let’s discuss it. I’ll wait to hear from you.
Shalom
.’